A couple of months ago I noted that my old school, the university of Waterloo had a bit of egg on its face as it forgot to get it’s only Nobel Prize winner promoted to full professor. Well in time for the Nobel ceremony they did it, she became a full professor in November! Take about avoiding major embarrassment in Stockholm!

But the key message for accounting researchers is look around your school! Are there deserving female, visible minority’s or other what we quaintly call at Queen’s “equity seeking” associate professors that may need encouragement to go up for promotion to full professor? I have been active on several campuses over the years but sometime it is a hard sell especially in countries like Canada where there can be little or no monetary rewards for all the work it takes to put in the documents. And I will admit it, I am not convincing in every case ( look at my Faculty list at Queen’s to realize that)! But at least I know I have tried! Sometime it just takes years to persuade!!!

But remember, the face of the academy counts! Why do you think in the USA that less than one percent ( yeah you read it right 1%) of CPAs are African Americans? Maybe the small number of role models in academics might have something to do with it!

And that’s how I see it!